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ICA logo, USA flag, and State Department Seal

 

(Boston, MA—October 14, 2020) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is pleased to announce that Simone Leigh will represent the United States at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2022. Leigh’s unique sculptural work explores and elevates ideas about history, race, gender, labor, and monuments, creating and reclaiming powerful narratives of Black women. She will create a new series of sculptures for the U.S. Pavilion in Venice, Italy, on view April 23–November 27, 2022.

The 2022 U.S. Pavilion is co-commissioned by Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director, and Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA. The museum is organizing Leigh’s first survey exhibition—which will include works from the forthcoming Biennale—and a major monograph to be presented in Boston in 2023.

“Over the course of two decades, Simone Leigh has created an indelible body of work that centers the experiences and histories of Black women and at such a crucial moment in history, I can think of no better artist to represent the United States,” said Medvedow. “The scale and magnificence of Leigh’s art demands visibility and power; it is probing, timely, and urgent. We are proud and honored to share this work with audiences from around the globe at the next Biennale in Venice.”

Leigh’s new body of work for the Biennale will include a monumental bronze sculpture for the U.S. Pavilion’s outdoor forecourt. The Pavilion’s five galleries will house interrelated works in ceramic, bronze, and raffia, populating the gallery space with figurative representations for the first time in many years. Central to the project is a partnership with the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective, an innovative program based in the Department of Art & Visual Culture at Spelman College, which prepares future curators, art historians, and museum professionals. Nikki Greene, Assistant Professor of the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora at Wellesley College and Paul Ha, Director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center are advisors to the project.

“Simone Leigh is one of the most gifted and respected artists working today. For the U.S. Pavilion, Leigh will create a series of new sculptures and installations that address what the artist calls an ‘incomplete archive’ of Black feminist thought, with works inspired by leading Black intellectuals. Her work insists on the centrality of Black female forms within the cultural sphere, and serves as a beacon in our moment,” said Respini.

Biographies 

Simone Leigh

Simone Leigh’s (b. 1967, Chicago, IL) works in sculpture, video, and installation—all are informed by her ongoing exploration of the experiences of Black femmes. Her work traverses across time, geography, and cultures, and her objects often employ materials and forms traditionally associated with African art and vernacular traditions across the African Diaspora.

Leigh’s monumental sculpture Brick House is currently installed on the High Line Plinth, New York. She received the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize in 2018 and has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2019); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Studio Museum in Harlem in Marcus Garvey Park, New York (2016); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (with Chitra Ganesh, 2016); New Museum, New York (2016); Creative Time and Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn (2014); and The Kitchen, New York (2014). She has been included in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019); 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); MoMA PS1 (2015); and Dak’Art 11th Biennale of Contemporary African Art, Dakar, Senegal (2014). Her work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; and the ICA/Boston, among others.

Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director, ICA/Boston
Co-Commissioner

Throughout her career, Medvedow has championed the intersection of contemporary art and civic life. At the ICA, she led the museum’s transformation from a small, non-collecting institution into a major presence in the contemporary art world and on Boston’s waterfront. She is responsible for building the first new art museum in Boston in nearly a century, beginning a focused permanent collection, launching a nationally recognized teen arts education program, providing artistic leadership to pioneering exhibitions and performances, and exponentially increasing the museum’s audiences and impact. In 2018, Medvedow led the significant expansion of the ICA with the opening of the Watershed, a reclaimed industrial space in East Boston for large-scale artistic commissions and community engagement.

Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston
Co-Commissioner

For two decades, Respini has been curating groundbreaking and ambitious exhibitions and has consistently worked with a diverse roster of artists exploring themes around representation and history, political agency, and material culture. Respini curated the critically acclaimed thematic exhibitions When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art (2019) and Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today (2018); and organized ambitious solo presentations with artists such as Firelei Báez (2021); John Akomfrah (2019); Huma Bhabha (2019); and William Forsythe (2018). Her other notable exhibitions include the retrospectives of Cindy Sherman (2012) and Walid Raad (2015) at the Museum of Modern Art. Well respected in the art field, she teaches curatorial studies at Harvard University, and publishes widely. Respini is currently working with Leigh on her first museum survey exhibition, scheduled for 2023 at the ICA.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About La Biennale di Venezia

Established in 1895, the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is considered the most prestigious contemporary art exhibition in the world, introducing hundreds of thousands of visitors to exciting new art every two years. The 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (April 23–November 27, 2022) is directed by Cecilia Alemani.

About the U.S. Pavilion

The United States Pavilion, a building in the neoclassical style in the Giardini della Biennale, Venice, opened on May 4, 1930. Since 1986, the U.S. Pavilion has been owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and managed by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, which works closely with the U.S. Department of State and exhibition curators to install and maintain all official U.S. exhibitions presented in the Pavilion. Every two years, museum curators from across the country detail their visions for the U.S. Pavilion in proposals that are reviewed by the National Endowment for the Arts’s Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions (FACIE), a group comprising curators, museum directors, and artists, who then submit their recommendations to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Past exhibitions can be viewed on the Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s website at guggenheim-venice.it.

About the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) builds relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries through academic, cultural, sports, professional, and private exchanges, as well as public-private partnerships and mentoring programs. These exchange programs improve foreign relations and strengthen the national security of the United States, support U.S. international leadership, and provide a broad range of domestic benefits by helping break down barriers that often divide us, like religion, politics, language and ethnicity, and geography. ECA programs build connections that engage and empower people and motivate them to become leaders and thinkers, to develop new skills, and to find connections that will create positive change in their communities. For more information, please visit exchanges.state.gov/us.

Media Contacts:

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
Colette Randall, crandall@icaboston.org, 617-478-3181
Margaux Leonard, mleonard@icaboston.org, 617-478-3176

Office of Public Affairs and Strategic Communications
The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs 
202-632-6452
ECA-Press@state.gov

Additional images and portraits of the artist and co-commissioners are available upon request. 

One of the best-loved works in the ICA’s permanent collection, The Visitors is the first newly installed exhibition at the museum following months of closure

(Boston, MA—September 16, 2020) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors, a monumental, nine-channel sound and video installation of a performance staged at Rokeby Farm, a historic forty-three-room estate in upstate New York. The first newly installed exhibition at the museum following months of closure during the global COVID-19 pandemic, The Visitors (2012) is a truly beloved artwork in the ICA’s permanent collection, one that continually inspires and moves our community. The exhibition opens to members on Wednesday, September 30 at 10 AM and to the public on Thursday, October 1 at 5 PM. Advance timed tickets required at icaboston.org/tickets. On view through August 15, 2021, this presentation is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

Each of the individual audio and video channels shows a musician or group of musicians, including Kjartansson, playing instruments either alone or in groups, isolated yet in unison, occupying different rooms of the romantically dilapidated house. The musical composition—whose lyrics come from the poem “Feminine Ways,” written by artist Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir—coheres in the work’s installation, presenting an emotionally dynamic and moving ensemble performance Kjartansson refers to as a “feminine nihilistic gospel song.” Through its unique arrangement of music in space, The Visitors creates a layered portrait of the house and its musical inhabitants. For some, the prolonged experience of sheltering in place—characterized at times as being alone together—has dramatically changed our conception of home and complicated our relationships to one another. As the museum reopens and visitors return, we turn to this familiar work for its range of resonant themes, its capacity to comfort and heal, and with the knowledge that our experience of it at this time will be different.

Exhibition-related programs

Virtual Play Date: In Harmony
Fri, Sep 25, 10 AM, 2:45 PM, 3:30 PM + 4:30 PM
Interactive workshops on Zoom with advance registration
Inspired by The Visitors, explore how music, art, and movement resonate through us. Families are invited to explore, look, create, and move as we dive into contemporary art and making. Please note the new Fall Play Date schedule, beginning this month: Little Play Date from 10–10:45 AM for families with children ages 5 and under; Play Date After School starting at 2:45 PM for families with children of all ages. Virtual Play Dates occur on the last Friday of the month. Schedule and program descriptions will be posted closer to the event date. Workshops will be held on Zoom and will be live and interactive. Advanced registration required.

Virtual First Fridays: A Visit with Oompa
Fri, Oct 2, 8 PM
Streaming on Facebook, Twitch, Vimeo, and the ICA website
Boston-based performer, rapper, and poet, Oompa will take over First Fridays with a performance inspired by and in the spirit of Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors, a tribute filmed in the ICA’s building!

Virtual Public Celebration
Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors
Wed, Oct 21
Steaming on Facebook, Twitch, Vimeo, and the ICA website
Join us to virtually celebrate the opening of Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors, with special appearances and tributes to this beloved artwork in the ICA’s permanent collection, one that continually inspires and moves our community.

About the artist

Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976, Reykjavik, Iceland) has had solo exhibitions at the Reykjavík Art Museum, the Barbican Centre, London, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Park, Washington D.C., the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, the New Museum, New York, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, the Frankfurter Kunstverein, and the BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna. Kjartansson participated in The Encyclopedic Palace at the Venice Biennale in 2013, Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2014, and he represented Iceland at the 2009 Venice Biennale. The artist is the recipient of the 2015 Artes Mundi’s Derek Williams Trust Purchase Award, and Performa’s 2011 Malcolm McLaren Award. The artist lives and works in Reykjavík.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The ICA is committed to maintaining a respectful and safe environment for all at the museum.

ICA Kids and Family programs are supported, in part, by Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld, the Hassenfeld Family Foundation, the Willow Tree Fund, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and the Raymond T. & Ann T. Mancini Family Foundation. 

Alexion logo

(Boston, MA—August 25, 2020) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announces its advance schedule of exhibitions through 2022. Upcoming exhibitions include a major collection show titled i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times featuring works by Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Ndijeka Akuniyli Crosby, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, Henry Taylor, and more; the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of the multi-disciplinary artist and designer Virgil Abloh; a newly commissioned, monumental sculpture by Firelei Báez at the ICA Watershed; and the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson.

All exhibition dates are subject to change. For more information and to confirm schedule, please contact Margaux Leonard at mleonard@icaboston.org or 617-478-3176.

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Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors
September 30, 2020–August 15, 2021
The first newly installed exhibition at the museum following months of closure during the global COVID-19 pandemic, The Visitors is a beloved artwork in the ICA’s permanent collection, one that continually inspires and moves our community. A portrayal of friendship, love, and loss, The Visitors is a monumental, nine-channel sound and video installation of a performance staged at Rokeby Farm, a historic forty-three-room estate in upstate New York. Each of the individual audio and video channels features musicians playing instruments either alone or in small groups, isolated yet in unison, occupying different rooms of the romantically dilapidated estate. The musical composition coheres in the work’s installation, presenting a dynamic and moving ensemble performance Kjartansson refers to as a “feminine nihilistic gospel song.” Through its unique arrangement of music in space, The Visitors creates a layered portrait of the house and its musical inhabitants. For some, the prolonged experience of sheltering-in-place—characterized at times as being “alone together”—has dramatically changed our conception of home and our relationships to one another. As the museum reopens, we turn to this familiar work for its range of resonant themes, its capacity to comfort and heal, and with the knowledge that our experience of it at this time will be different. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

Visitors looking at ICA Collection painting by Henry Taylor

i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times
November 18, 2020–May 23, 2021
i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times celebrates the power of experiencing art in person. This exhibition, which borrows its title from a Henry Taylor painting in the ICA collection, is conceived as an invitation to our visitors to create a personal connection with works of art. Collaboratively and virtually organized in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest, i’m yours is presented within a dramatic, raw architectural space as a series of small galleries, each offering a different artistic perspective to emphasize that the stories museums may tell through art are never fixed but always in process. Comprising unique encounters with new acquisitions and iconic works from the ICA’s collection, the exhibition’s groupings, or scenes, address a range of topics, including ideas of home and history, social and material transformation, and frames of identity in portraiture and sculpture. Including works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, and many others, i’m yours sparks wonder, encourages questions, challenges assumptions, and provides a space for reflection. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager; Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator; Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant; and Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

An dark space with projected shadows of figures.

William Kentridge: KABOOM!
November 18, 2020–May 23, 2021
The wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work of William Kentridge (b. 1955, Johannesburg, South Africa) examines the prolonged effects of settler colonialism and the apartheid system in South Africa. Through drawing, performance, film, and opera, Kentridge recomposes historical narratives and proposes new understandings of the past, emphasizing, as he says, “what we’ve chosen not to remember.” The ICA presents the U.S. museum premiere of KABOOM! (2018), a recent major acquisition and room-filling multimedia installation. KABOOM! tells the story of the two million African porters conscripted into service for German, British, and French colonial powers during World War I. Set to a rousing, orchestral score co-composed by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi, KABOOM! employs collage, drawing, and animation on repurposed archival documents to embody at gallery scale the theatrical intensity of the artist’s full-scale production of The Head & the Load (2018), a work whose title references the Ghanaian proverb, “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck.” A way of speaking back to the incomplete story of colonialism and exploitative labor systems, KABOOM! envelops the gallery in a visual landscape that traverses memory and narrative, revealing history to be a fragmented and authorless relationship to the past. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant.

Along two adjacent white walls, a series of colorful hanging elements form geometrically shaped curtains.

Eva LeWitt
Mar 21, 2021–Oct 23, 2022
The vibrant sculptures of New York–based artist Eva LeWitt (b. 1985, Spoleto, Italy) transform industrially manufactured materials such as coated mesh, polyurethane foam, and latex into hand-fashioned environmental arrangements of hanging geometric forms and gradations of undulating color. For the ICA’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, LeWitt will conceive of a monumental hanging wall sculpture made of colorful bands of coated mesh fabric whose shifting linear composition creates a number of interlocking circular forms. As the work’s crosshatched woven surfaces and fields of color overlap and respond to ambient conditions, an optical moiré effect is produced, creating a dynamic perceptual experience that vibrates throughout the museum’s interior. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

A rendering of sculpture that appears to be a sinking ruin and blue waves in the ICA's seasonal exhibition space, the Watershed

Firelei Báez
Jul 3–Sep 6, 2021
ICA Watershed
In summer 2021, the ICA Watershed will feature a newly commissioned, monumental sculpture by acclaimed artist Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic). In her largest sculptural installation to date, the artist reimagines the archeological ruins of the Sans-Souci Palace in Haiti as though they were revealed in East Boston after the sea receded from the Watershed floor. The Watershed’s location—in a working shipyard and as a trade site and point of entry and home for immigrants over decades—provides a pivotal point of reference. Báez embeds Sans-Souci within the geological layers of Boston, where histories of revolution and independence are integral to the city’s identity. This site-specific installation will invite visitors to traverse passageways and travel through time, engaging with streams of influence and interconnectedness. The work’s intricately painted architectural surfaces include symbols of healing and resistance, patterning drawn from West African indigo printing traditions (later used in the American South), and sea growths native to Caribbean waters. Báez’s sculpture points to the centuries-long exchanges of ideas and influence between Europe, the African continent, and the Americas. Organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

Installation view of Virgil Abloh's design pieces in MCA Chicago, showing large white blocks with holes, ridges, and graffiti treatment.

Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”
Jul 3–Sep 26, 2021
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of the genre-bending artist and designer Virgil Abloh (b. 1980, Rockford, IL). Abloh pioneers a practice that cuts across media and connects visual artists, musicians, graphic designers, fashion designers, and architects. Abloh cultivated an interest in design and music at an early age, finding inspiration in the urban culture of Chicago. While pursuing a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, he worked on album covers, concert designs, and merchandising. In 2013, Abloh founded his stand-alone fashion brand Off-White™ in Milan, Italy, and, in 2018, assumed the position of artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and set in an immersive space designed by Rem Koolhaas’s renowned architecture firm OMA*AMO, the exhibition will offer an in-depth look at defining highlights of Abloh’s career, including signature clothing collections, video documentation of iconic fashion shows, distinctive furniture and graphic design work, and collaborative projects with contemporary artists. A program of cross-disciplinary offerings will mirror the artist’s range of interests across music and design. The ICA’s presentation is coordinated by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

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Raúl de Nieves
Aug 25, 2021–Jul 24, 2022
New York–based artist Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and musician whose multifaceted practice ranges from stained-glass-style narrative paintings to energetic performances, to densely adorned figurative sculptures encrusted with bells, beads, bangles, sequins, and other everyday materials. These opulent sculptures reference ritual costumes in Mexican culture and evoke other global theatrical traditions, from Japanese kabuki to circus performance to religious processional attire. De Nieves’s distinctive visual language draws from Mexican craft traditions, religious iconography, and mythology to explore the transformational possibilities of adornment and the mutability of identity. This is his first museum presentation in Boston. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

In this photo two adolescent girls kneel back to back on an unmade bed, looking at the camera. They are wearing black pants and gold tops and each have one arm stretched up and touching the other's hand. The wall behind them is yellow with scuff marks. The sheets are white with yellow flowers.

Deana Lawson
Oct 27, 2021–Mar 6, 2022
This exhibition is the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson (b. 1979 in Rochester, NY). Lawson is a singular voice in photography today. For more than 15 years, she has been investigating and challenging the conventional representations of Black identities. Drawing on a wide spectrum of photographic languages, including the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and appropriated images, Lawson’s posed photographs channel broader ideas about personal and social histories, sexuality, and spiritual beliefs. Lawson’s large-format color photographs are highly staged and depict individuals, couples, and families in both domestic and public settings, picturing narratives of family, love, and desire. Engaging members of her own community as well as strangers she meets on the street, she meticulously poses her subjects in a variety of interiors to create what the artist describes as “a mirror of everyday life, but also a projection of what I want to happen. It’s about setting a different standard of values and saying that everyday Black lives, everyday experiences, are beautiful, and powerful, and intelligent.” Lawson’s works are made in collaboration with her subjects, who are often nude, embracing, and directly confronting the camera, destabilizing the notion of photography as a passively voyeuristic medium. This survey exhibition will include a selection of photographs from 2004 to the present, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalog, featuring the voices and perspectives of a variety of scholars, historians, and writers. This exhibition is co-organized by ICA/Boston and MoMA PS1. Organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, and Peter Eleey, Chief Curator, MoMA PS1, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant, ICA/Boston.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The ICA is committed to maintaining a respectful and safe environment for all at the museum.

Credits

i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times
Support  for i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times is provided by First Republic Bank. 

William Kentridge: KABOOM! 
KABOOM! was acquired through the generosity of Amy and David Abrams, James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund.

Eva LeWitt
Eva LeWitt is presented by Max Mara.  

Additional support is provided by Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest and Barbara H. Lloyd.  

Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, with Cara Kuball, Curatorial Project Manager.

Free admission to the ICA Watershed is made possible by the generosity of Alan and Vivien Hassenfeld and the Hassenfeld Family Foundation.

The Boston Foundation welcomes you to the ICA Watershed. 

The ICA Watershed is supported by Fund for the Arts, a public art program of the New England Foundation for the Arts and Vertex. 

Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is organized by Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator of the MCA Chicago. The exhibition is designed by Samir Bantal, Director of AMO, the research and design studio of OMA. The ICA’s presentation is coordinated by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

The exhibition tour for Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is made possible by Kenneth C. Griffin.

Major support for the Boston presentation of Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is provided by Encore Boston Harbor.

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Seaport

Support is provided by Northern Trust. 

Northern Trust

Neiman Marcus is the Lead Education Partner of Teen Programs associated with Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech.”

Neiman Marcus logo

Additional support is generously provided by Kathleen McDonough and Edward Berman, Kate and Chuck Brizius, Stephanie and John Connaughton, Karen Swett Conway and Brian Conway, Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest, Audrey and James Foster, Jodi and Hal Hess, Marina Kalb and David Feinberg, Kristen and Kent Lucken, and Mark and Marie Schwartz.

William Kentridge: KABOOM!
William Kentridge: KABOOM! is organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

KABOOM! was acquired with major support from Amy and David Abrams, with additional generous support from James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund.

Deana Lawson
Major support for Deana Lawson is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Additional support is generously provided by Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, Aedie McEvoy, Kambiz and Nazgol Shahbazi, Kim Sinatra, Charlotte and Herbert Wagner III, and the Kristen and Kent Lucken Fund for Photography.

Images
Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors, 2012. Nine-channel video projection (color, sound; 64:00 minutes). Gift of Graham and Ann Gund to Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Gund Gallery at Kenyon College. Photo by Elísabet Davids. Courtesty the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavík. © Ragnar Kjartansson | Henry Taylor, i’m yours, 2015. Acrylic on canvas, 73 ⅛ × 74 ¼ inches (185.7 × 188.6 cm). Acquried through the generosity of the Acquisitions Circle. © Henry Taylor | William Kentridge, KABOOM!, 2018. Three-channel HD film installation, model stage, paper props, found objects, and three mini-projectors with stands, 75 ¼ x 196 ¼ x 40 ⅜ inches (191 x 498.5 x 102.5 cm). Acquired with major support from Amy and David Abrams, with additional generous support from James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman. © William Kentridge | Installation view, Eva LeWitt, VI, VII, Oslo, 2018. Courtesy the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo by Christian Tunge. © Eva LeWitt | Firelei Báez, ICA Watershed installation rendering, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Rendering by Nate Garner. | Installation view, Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2019. Courtesy of the artist. © Virgil Abloh | Raúl de Nieves, Fina Vision, 2019. Vintage military suit, sequins, metal bells, threads, glue, cardboard, plastic beads, tape, trims, and mannequin. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Company, New York © Raúl de Nieves | Deana Lawson, 2010. Inkjet print, 35 × 43 inches (88.9 × 109.2 cm). © Deana Lawson. Courtesy the artist; Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York; and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago.

(Boston, MA—August 10, 2020) Since the close of schools in March, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) has continued to serve its teen audiences through ongoing virtual programming. A wide variety of virtual art classes and events are available to all teens for the remainder of the summer; see full program details below. All programs and events take place on Zoom and are free for Boston Public School high school students. Most are free for all teens 13+. Visit teens.icaboston.org to learn more and register for programs.

“When schools closed for in-person learning, we began conversations with our partners to get a sense of how the ICA could help to address ‘summer learning loss’ and how it might be exacerbated due to the quarantine. We also heard from our ICA teens that they still needed the museum to connect with them and to connect them with one another. Though we’re unable to meet and work in our usual museum spaces right now, we are happy to be serving our teen audiences in this new way,” said Monica Garza, the ICA’s Charlotte Wagner Director of Education.

“Teens, like all people, want to stay creative and connected during this time of such uncertainty. They want to express themselves, create work that amplifies what matters to them, and have that work be seen by others. We have adapted, embracing flexibility and creativity, as we aspire to be an empowering platform for young people,” says Betsy Gibbons, the ICA’s Director of Teen Programs.

In addition to these programs, the museum is partnering with UMass Boston’s Urban Scholars program, Vertex’s High School Internship Program, Castle Square Tenants Organization’s Media Makers Internship Program, and Bloomberg Arts Interns to deepen the experiences of the young people they work with through art looking and making.

Virtual teen art programs and events

Summer Photography: Drop-In Sessions
Through Aug 18
Interested in photography but not sure where to start? Trying to take your skills to the next level? Looking for opportunities to connect with other creatives? Come thru for these virtual sessions! Explore topics like lighting, color, and finding inspiration in quarantine. Free for teens 13+! Join us for any or all sessions. When you apply, we’ll send details on how to join us on Zoom.

Visual Art & Writing Drop-In Series
Through Sep 30
Help us reimagine multimedia art experiences. Make art with us virtually with recycled & accessible materials. Share ideas rooted in self-expression. Free for teens 13+! Join us for any or all sessions. When you apply, we’ll send details on how to join us on Zoom.

Film School
Tue–Fri, Aug 11–14, 2020
Have you always wanted to make a film? Well, here’s your chance. In this one-week, online intensive, connect with other creative teens as you gain filmmaking skills. As part of a small team, you will work together virtually to build ideas, share feedback, and create an original short film.

You will: Join a group of teen filmmakers; gain skills in cinematography, audio recording, and video editing; and get familiar with contemporary art. Cost: Free for Boston Public School high school students; Fee: $360 nonmembers; $285 members.

August Virtual Teen Night
Thu, Aug 13, 6–8:30 PM
FREE for teens
Join the ICA Teen Arts Council—15 students from Boston-area high schools—for an unforgettable Virtual Teen Night! Organized by teens for teens, this online event features art-making activities, youth performances, and a dance party. The event will also feature an exciting collaboration with Converse, where teens will learn from Converse footwear designers how to create their own designs on the iconic canvas of the Chuck Taylor All Star. Those that participate can submit their creations to a design challenge. Winners of the challenge will have one pair of their original Chuck Taylor All Star design produced by Converse, and shipped to them.

About the ICA Teen Arts Programs

The ICA has a strong institutional commitment to teens, stemming from the recognition that teens are our future artists, leaders, and audiences. The museum serves more than 6,000 teens each year, and has emerged as a national leader in the field of museum arts education for teens. The ICA introduces adolescents to contemporary art through drop-in events such as Teen Nights and school tours of ICA exhibitions. Enrollment-based programs such as Teen New Media courses offer instruction in digital photography, film, music production and more, while yearlong programs such as Fast Forward provide an immersive experience where teens can create films and gain real job skills using cutting-edge technologies. In partnership with Boston-area schools, the ICA hosts WallTalk, a multi-visit art and writing program designed to improve the critical thinking and verbal literacy skills of middle and high-school students.

The ICA’s Teen Arts Council (TAC) is the ICA’s paid creative leadership program, offering teens the opportunity to work with the museum as ambassadors, event planners, and programmers, learning 21st-century skills for their future while contributing important skills and perspectives to ICA programming. The TAC has nimbly refocused its efforts to digital platforms, creating new content and opportunities to connect other teens with the arts and one another while the museum is closed. Meeting twice weekly via Zoom to move these ongoing projects forward, the group continues to receive pay for their remote work.

In 2012, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the ICA with the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the highest honor awarded to youth programs in the U.S. More information about the ICA’s Teen Programs can be found at www.icateens.org.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The ICA is committed to maintaining a respectful and safe environment for all at the museum.
 

Lead support for Teen Programs provided by Wagner Foundation. 

Wagner Foundation logo

Teen Programs are made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Award Number 10-19-0390-19.  

Institute of Museum and Library Services Logo

Additional support is provided by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; the Rowland Foundation, Inc.; The Corkin Family; the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation; Vertex; the William E. Schrafft and Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust; The Willow Tree Fund; the Nathaniel Saltonstall Arts Fund; the Mass Cultural Council; the Robert Lehman Foundation; the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; MFS Investment Management; the Jean Gaulin Foundation; BPS Arts Expansion Fund at EdVestors; and Santander. 

Mass Cultural Council logo

Vertex logo

Converse is committed to supporting movements for positive social change and amplifying youth voices as they build the future they believe in.

Converse logo

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit https://www.imls.gov/ and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

Reopening begins with member appreciation days July 14–15; free admission for all July 16–19

(Boston, MA—July 8, 2020) Jill Medvedow, the Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced today that the museum will reopen to the public on Thursday,July 16 with new health and safety protocols in place for the safety of both visitors and staff. The ICA will host member appreciation days on July 14 and& 15, and members will be able to bring an additional guest for free through September 7, 2020 (Labor Day). The museum will also offer free admission to the public from July 16 through July 19. Advance timed tickets required at icaboston.org/tickets.

“I am very eager to welcome people back to the ICA, to share the extraordinary craft and insights of amazing artists, and to put exhibitions, educational materials, outdoor space, and more in service to communities. I’m equally eager to simply see our audiences—to be alone together at the museum—as we navigate our way together, invest in the common good, and recognize the power of the arts to help us understand the promise and the pain of our moment,” said Medvedow.

The museum will open with exhibitions of work by Sterling Ruby, Tschabalala Self, Carolina Caycedo, Nina Chanel Abney, and our collection show Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art After Kusama. These exhibitions were on view when the museum closed in March, and have now been extended. In the fall, the ICA will open several new exhibitions, including a major collection show titled i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times featuring works by Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Ndijeka Akuniyli Crosby, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, Henry Taylor, and more; the U.S. museum premiere of William Kentridge’s KABOOM! (2018), a recent major acquisition and room-filling multimedia installation; and Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors (2012). Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING will remain closed for further safety assessments. Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech,” slated to open this July, will now open in July 2021. An updated exhibition schedule can be viewed at icaboston.org/exhibitions.

Advance timed tickets are required to allow for contactless entry, and we ask that visitors arrive to the museum no more than five minutes ahead of their designated time slot. Timed tickets can be reserved online starting July 8 for ICA members and July 15 for general admission at icaboston.org/tickets.

When the ICA reopens, the museum will implement new procedures and policies for the safety of visitors and staff, following the health and safety requirements and recommendations of the City of Boston, State of Massachusetts, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These procedures and policies include:

  • Online ticketing and contactless entry.
  • Limited visitor capacity.
  • Face covering required for all staff and visitors.
  • Increased safety measures and equipment available to visitors, including hand sanitizer stations placed throughout the museum. 
  • New signage outlining safety protocols and delineating physical distance.
  • New cleaning protocols.
  • Contactless, digital resources available for visitors via URL/QR code.
  • Reconfiguration of and capacity limits in spaces throughout the museum to ensure physical distancing.
  • Implementation of new procedures and safety guidelines for ICA staff, including the requirement to wear face coverings and maintain physical distancing at all times on site, and a daily health self-assessment. 

In addition to the changes outlined above, the ICA has postponed all theater productions and performances until 2021. Public programming and events are also currently postponed. On-site group tours have been suspended and the ICA will provide additional options for self-guided visits. The ICA plans to continue many different kinds of virtual programs during the first phase of reopening, including family programs, teen programs, virtual tours, and social programs like First Fridays.

Leading up to the November 2020 election, the ICA will offer voter registration and census surveys on site from 5–9 PM on Thursday evenings and 11–3 PM on Saturdays and Sundays. Voter registration forms will be available through October 13 and census surveys will be available through October 31.

Opening schedule

The Watershed

The ICA will continue to work collaboratively and use the Watershed as a food distribution site through September 3, 2020. In partnership with East Boston community organizations and the museum’s caterer, The Catered Affair, over 2,000 boxes of much-needed fresh produce and dairy will be delivered to East Boston families by the end of the summer. The Watershed’s previously scheduled programming, including a new site-specific installation by artist Firelei Báez, is postponed until 2021. 

Exhibition schedule

Sterling Ruby
Through October 12, 2020
The ICA presents the first comprehensive museum survey of artist Sterling Ruby. The exhibition features more than 70 works and features an array of works in various mediums, from his renowned ceramics and paintings to lesser-known drawings and sculptures. Since his earliest works, Ruby has investigated the role of the artist as an outsider. Critiquing the structures of modernism and traditional institutions, Ruby addresses the repressed underpinnings of U.S. culture and the coding of power and violence, with a range of imagery from the American flag to prison architecture and graffiti. Craft is central to his inquiry, informed by his upbringing in Pennsylvania Dutch country and working in Los Angeles, as he explores hand-based processes from Amish quilt-making to California’s radical ceramics tradition. Sterling Ruby is co-presented with Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and is accompanied by an illustrated scholarly catalogue edited by Alex Gartenfeld and Eva Respini, featuring a conversation between Ruby and Isabelle Graw, and essays that consider Ruby’s work in the context of contemporary art production and visual culture of the last 30 years. Organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, and Alex Gartenfeld, Artistic Director, ICA, Miami, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, ICA/Boston.

Tschabalala Self: Out of Body
Through September 7, 2020
Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Tschabalala Self (b. 1990, Harlem, NY) was raised in Harlem as the youngest of five. She grew up observing the textures and pace of metropolitan life, with a keen attention to the surfaces that surround and clothe our bodies—whether carpet or curtains, fashion, or salvaged textiles that contain the spirit of use. The creative repurposing of material, along with the self-expression and self-possession of Black women—including her mother’s innovative transformation of fabrics into dresses—inspire her work. The large-scale figurative paintings and sculptures on view, dating from 2015 to the present, convey a multidimensional humanity, from strength and vulnerability to sexuality and boredom, shaped by methods of abstraction. Organized by Ellen Tani and Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

Carolina Caycedo: Cosmotarrayas
Through September 7, 2020
The interdisciplinary practice of Los Angeles–based artist Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978, London) is grounded in vital questions related to asymmetrical power relations, dispossession, extraction of resources, and environmental justice. Since 2012, Caycedo has conducted an ongoing project, Be Dammed, examining the wide-reaching impacts of dams built along waterways by transnational corporations, including the displacement and dispossession of peoples, particularly in Latin American countries such as Brazil or Colombia (where she was raised and frequently returns). At the ICA, Caycedo will present the culmination of one component of the project, a series of hanging sculptures called Cosmotarrayas that are assembled with handmade fishing nets and other objects collected during field research in river communities affected by the privatization of waterways. These objects, many of which were entrusted to her by individuals no longer able to use them, demonstrate the meaningful connectivity and exchange at the heart of Caycedo’s practice. At the same time, they also represent the dispossession of these individuals and their continued resistance to corporations and governments seeking to control the flow of water and thus their way of life. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art After Kusama
Through July 18, 2021
Drawn primarily from the ICA’s permanent collection, this exhibition presents artworks that engage with the pioneering ideas of Yayoi Kusama. Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama celebrates Kusama’s prescient artistic vision, which since the 1950s has merged techniques of repetition, obsessional patterns, and the activation of the body in search of a path to liberation from psychological and societal constraints. Through her paintings, sculptures, and environments, as well as body art, film, and performance, Kusama channeled the attitudes and realities of the moment but avoided such labels as pop, minimalism, postminimalism, and performance art. Kusama’s peers shared her interest in timeless concepts that pushed the limits of possibility and of imagination: the idea of the infinite; the experience of rapture; the representational power of illusion; and the threshold between life and death. Here, Kusama’s work is presented alongside that of her contemporaries, such as Louise Bourgeois and Ana Mendieta, and other artists whose work builds on her lasting impact on contemporary art through dizzying arrays of forms and colors, infinite reflection, and the evocative vocabulary of the body. Organized by Ellen Tani.

Nina Chanel Abney
Through January 3, 2021
Deeply invested in creating imagery that is legible and accessible, Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Chicago) is known for weaving colorful geometric shapes, cartoons, language, and symbols into patterned and energetic compositions. At the ICA, she created a mural that speaks to social conflict in the digital age, including the constant stream of true and false information, the history of liberal racism and capitalism, and abuses of power that lead to violence and structural inequality. Organized by Ellen Tani.

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors
September 30, 2020–August 15, 2021
The first newly installed exhibition at the museum following months of closure during the global COVID-19 pandemic, The Visitors is a beloved artwork in the ICA’s permanent collection, one that continually inspires and moves our visitors. A portrayal of friendship, love, and loss, The Visitors is a monumental, nine-channel sound and video installation of a performance staged at Rokeby Farm, a historic forty-three-room estate in upstate New York. Each of the individual audio and video channels features musicians playing instruments either alone or in small groups, isolated yet in unison, occupying different rooms of the romantically dilapidated estate. The musical composition coheres in the work’s installation, presenting a dynamic and moving ensemble performance Kjartansson refers to as a “feminine nihilistic gospel song.” Through its unique arrangement of music in space, The Visitors creates a layered portrait of the house and its musical inhabitants. For some, the prolonged experience of sheltering-in-place—characterized at times as being “alone together”—has dramatically changed our conception of home and our relationships to one another. As the museum reopens, we turn to this familiar work for its range of resonant themes, its capacity to comfort and heal, and with the knowledge that our experience of it at this time will be different. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager.

i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times
November 18, 2020–May 23, 2021
Events of this year have brought the world to a halt, affecting global commerce and security, putting our own mortality in sharp focus, and heightening existing inequities, injustices, and political tensions. In this time, we ask: What is the role of art and museums? i’m yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times celebrates that art belongs to everyone. This exhibition, which takes its title from a Henry Taylor painting in the ICA collection, underscores that without visitors, museums—and the works they house—are incomplete. Collaboratively and virtually organized in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest against racial injustices, i’m yours offers a non-hierarchical presentation of art works in an unfinished architectural environment to emphasize that the stories museums may tell through art are never fixed but always in process. Comprising unique encounters with new and iconic works from the ICA’s collection, the exhibition’s groupings, or vignettes, address a range of topics, including ideas of home and history, social and material transformation, and frames of identity in portraiture and sculpture. As an invitation to be present with works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kader Attia, Firelei Báez, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Simone Leigh, Doris Salcedo, and others, i’m yours sparks wonder, encourages questions, challenges assumptions, and provides a space for reflection. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager; Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator; Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant; and Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

William Kentridge: KABOOM!
November 18, 2020–May 23, 2021
The wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work of William Kentridge (b. 1955, Johannesburg, South Africa) examines the prolonged effects of settler colonialism and the apartheid system in South Africa. Through drawing, performance, film, and opera, Kentridge recomposes historical narratives and proposes new understandings of the past, emphasizing, as he says, “what we’ve chosen not to remember.” The ICA presents the U.S. museum premiere of KABOOM! (2018), a recent major acquisition and room-filling multimedia installation. KABOOM! tells the little-known story of the two million Black African porters conscripted into service for German, British, and French colonial powers during World War I in Africa. Set to a rousing, orchestral score co-composed by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi, KABOOM! employs collage, drawing, and animation on repurposed archival documents to embody at gallery scale the theatrical intensity of the artist’s full-scale production of The Head & the Load (2018), a work whose title references the Ghanaian proverb, “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck.” A way of speaking back to the incomplete story of colonialism and exploitative labor systems, KABOOM! envelops the gallery in a visual landscape that traverses memory and narrative, revealing history to be a fragmented and authorless relationship to the past. Organized by Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, with Anni Pullagura, Curatorial Assistant.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The ICA is committed to maintaining a respectful and safe environment for all at the museum.

 

Sterling Ruby
Major support for Sterling Ruby is provided by Sprüth Magers, Gagosian, and Xavier Hufkens.    

Additional support for the Boston presentation is generously provided by Stephanie Formica Connaughton and John Connaughton, Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest, Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, James and Audrey Foster, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, David and Leslie Puth, and Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III.

 

Tschabalala Self: Out of Body
Tschabalala Self: Out of Body is presented by Max Mara.
 

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.   

 

Additional support is generously provided by Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, The Coby Foundation, Ltd, and the Jennifer Epstein Fund for Women Artists.
 

 

Carolina Caycedo: Cosmotarraya
Carolina Caycedo: Cosmotarrayas is presented by Max Mara. 
 

 

Nina Chanel Abney
Support provided, in part, by Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest.

i’m yours: Encounters with Contemporary Art
Support for i’m yours: Encounters with Contemporary Art is provided by First Republic Bank.

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William Kentridge: KABOOM! 
KABOOM! was acquired through the generosity of Amy and David Abrams, James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund.
 

Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING
LOVE IS CALLING was acquired through the generosity of Barbara Lee/The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, Fotene Demoulas and Tom Coté, Hilary and Geoffrey Grove, Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld, Jodi and Hal Hess, Barbara H. Lloyd, and an anonymous donor.
 

Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”
Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” is organized by Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator of the MCA Chicago. The exhibition is designed by Samir Bantal, Director of AMO, the research and design studio of OMA. The ICA’s presentation is coordinated by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator.

The exhibition tour is made possible by Kenneth C. Griffin.

Support is provided by Northern Trust. 


Neiman Marcus is the Lead Education Partner of Teen Programs associated with Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech.”  

Previously scheduled programs at the ICA Watershed, including new commission by Firelei Báez, postponed to summer 2021

(Boston, MA – May 29, 2020) Jill Medvedow, the Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced today that the museum will continue to use the Watershed, its seasonal space in East Boston, as a food distribution site through September 3, 2020. In partnership with community organizations in East Boston and the museum’s caterer, The Catered Affair, over 2,000 boxes of much-needed fresh produce and dairy will be delivered to East Boston families by the end of the summer. The Watershed’s previously scheduled programming, including a new site-specific installation by artist Firelei Báez, will be postponed until 2021. 

“With the cooperation of Firelei Báez, our East Boston partners, ICA staff and generous donors, we are redirecting resources of the ICA and the Watershed in particular to address a direct need within the community,” said Medvedow. “Art projects are included in each box of food to provide families with new and creative activities to do at home during this challenging time. While disappointing that we will not open the Watershed this summer as planned, this is the safest way for the museum to stay connected and serve our audiences at this time.”

The food donation initiative is a collaboration between the ICA and several East Boston organizations: East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC); East Boston Social Centers; Maverick Landing Community Services; Eastie Farm; Orient Heights Housing Development; and Crossroads Family Center. East Boston has experienced one of the highest rates of COVID-19 in the city of Boston. The ICA was alerted to the need for fresh produce and healthy food through conversations with its community partners in East Boston. The museum reached out to its caterer, The Catered Affair, who offered to donate their labor in creating fresh food boxes for distribution. 

The Watershed was scheduled to open the 2020 season with a new commission by acclaimed artist Firelei Báez; the exhibition will now be on view in 2021. In her largest installation to date, Báez will reimagine the Watershed’s gallery space as the site of an ancient ruin, as though the sea had receded from the floor to reveal the archeology of human history in the Caribbean. An interactive art project by artist Stephen Hamilton, previously scheduled for the Watershed’s Harbor Room, will also take place in 2021.

About the Watershed

On July 4, 2018, the ICA opened to the public its new ICA Watershed, expanding artistic and educational programming on both sides of Boston Harbor—the Seaport and East Boston. Located in the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina, the ICA Watershed transformed a 15,000-square-foot, formerly condemned space into a vast and welcoming space to see and experience large-scale art. Admission to the Watershed—central to the museum’s vision for art and civic life—is free for all. The Watershed opened its inaugural year with an immersive installation by Diana Thater and its second year, 2019, with the U.S. premiere of John Akomfrah’s Purple.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

(Boston, MA—February 6, 2019) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) announced today the appointment of Anni Pullagura as Curatorial Assistant and Juan Omar Rodriguez as Curatorial Fellow. Anni will work on an array of upcoming exhibitions and publications, including the forthcoming survey exhibition of Deana Lawson and its accompanying publication. She will also serve a key role in the management of the ICA’s permanent collection. Juan Omar is working closely with ICA curators on the upcoming exhibition Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech,” in addition to supporting the curators in long-range research projects. Curatorial Fellowships are made possible, in part, through the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative, funded by the Walton Family Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Bios

A headshot of Anni Pullagura.

Anni Pullagura
Since coming to the ICA in 2018 as a Curatorial Fellow, Anni Pullagura has supported catalogue production and exhibition planning for When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art (2019-20), William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects (2018-19), and Huma Bhabha: They Live (2019). An alumna of the Center for Curatorial Leadership/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice, she has held numerous positions in cultural institutions throughout the United States, including the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the High Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in American Studies and an MA candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University, where she also received her MA in Public Humanities in 2016. As a 2019–20 Tyson Scholar of American Art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, her dissertation “Seeing Feeling: The Work of Empathy in Exhibitionary Spaces” traces a critical history of contemporary Black and Indigenous installation art since 1989.

Staff_Juan_Omar_Rodriguez_headshot.jpg

Juan Omar Rodriguez
Juan Omar Rodriguez received his MA in Art History and Museum Studies from Tufts University and his BA in Neuroscience from Oberlin College. He recently co-curated the exhibition SMFA at Tufts: Juried Student Exhibition 2019–2020 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has previously conducted research and designed public programs for Frida Kahlo and Arte Popular (2019) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies in Contemporary Art of the Americas (2018) at the Tufts University Art Galleries. 

 

 

 

 

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed in an East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Acknowledgments
Curatorial Fellowships are made possible, in part, through the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative, funded by the Walton Family Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Images
Anni Pullagura: Molly O’Donnell
Juan Omar Rodriguez: Liza Voll Photography

Visitors are invited to collaborate in the making of a large-scale tapestry designed in collaboration with local fiber artist Merill Comeau

(Boston, MA—February 4, 2020) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) has invited local fiber artist Merill Comeau to create an interactive installation and project in the museum’s Bank of America Art Lab with the debut of Threads of Connection, opening February 15. Comeau creates artwork that combines and layers hundreds of hand painted and printed repurposed textiles. Through this labor of love, Comeau stitches together stories of cultures, individuals, and relationships into dynamic and sprawling fiber works.  

Threads of Connection is a wall-sized tapestry installation that recognizes the building of community found within the age-old practice of gathering to assemble fabric pieces in quilting bees. This interactive project celebrates and reflects on the many different backgrounds and experiences of the people visiting the Bank of America Art Lab, as visitors of all ages are invited to collaborate in the making of the tapestry and share their stories in the museum’s own quilting bee. Contributions from visitors will be added to the tapestry regularly, creating a constantly growing reflection of the community.

Threads of Connection will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12–4 PM, from February 15 through June 21. The activity is free for all visitors with museum admission.

February School Vacation Week
Come visit us during school vacation week! Explore the galleries and create art together in the Bank of America Art Lab with art-making activities for visitors of all ages. Threads of Connection will be open 11 AM–4 PM during on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of February school vacation week. Admission on Presidents’ Day (Monday, February 17) will be free for all. Visit icaboston.org for more details and schedules as program dates approach.

Meet the artist on February 20, February 29, and April 23
Visitors are invited to meet Merill Comeau and learn about her creative process. More information at icaboston.org.

ICA Play Date: Crafting Community
Sat, Feb 29, 10 AM–4 PM
Kids rule the ICA the last Saturday of every month, when the museum fills up with fun, creative, and even zany activities for kids and adults to do together. Join Merill Comeau in the Bank of America Art Lab for a printmaking workshop and contribute to the growing community tapestry. We are excited to partner with Boston-based Wee the People, a social justice project for kids, as they explore themes from current exhibitions through storytelling and making. For ICA Play Dates, admission is free for up to 2 adults per family when accompanied by children ages 12 and under. Youth 17 and under are always admitted free to the ICA.

Also on view
Threads of Connection will be open during the ICA’s forthcoming exhibition Sterling Ruby, opening February 26. The exhibition is the first comprehensive museum survey for American/Dutch artist Sterling Ruby. The exhibition features more than 70 works that demonstrate the relationship between material transformation in Ruby’s practice and the rapid evolution of contemporary culture, institutions, and labor. Spanning more than two decades of the artist’s career, the exhibition features an array of works created in various mediums, from his renowned ceramics and paintings to lesser-known drawings and sculptures. Since his earliest works, Ruby has investigated the role of the artist as an outsider. Critiquing the structures of modernism and traditional institutions, Ruby addresses the repressed underpinnings of U.S. culture and the coding of power and violence, employing a range of imagery from the American flag to prison architecture and graffiti. Craft is central to his inquiry, informed by his upbringing in Pennsylvania Dutch country and working in Los Angeles, as he explores hand-based processes from Amish quilt-making to California’s radical ceramics tradition.

About the artist
Merill Comeau is a Boston-area mixed media artist specializing in textiles. She has participated in over 80 exhibitions including at the Fuller Craft Museum, Danforth Art Museum, Fitchburg Art Museum, Museums of Old York, MA and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute of Boston. Her installation Family of Origin is currently touring with FiberArt International 2019 and will travel to the Fort Collins Art Museum in Colorado in 2020. Comeau has completed ten artist residencies including three month-long stays at Weir Farm National Historic Site in CT where she researched Weir family women’s lives to use as art-making inspiration. She has been a guest artist in residence and exhibited at Southern New Hampshire University, Simmons College, Lasell University, Stonehill College, Dana Hall School and Phillips Exeter Academy. Comeau’s work has been showcased in numerous publications including Surface Design Journal, TextileArtist.org, Fiber Art Now, Textile Study Group of New York’s blog, Mass Cultural Council’s ArtsSake blog, and World of Threads Artist Interviews. In addition to her solo studio practice, Comeau facilitates the emergence of artistic voices. Since 2012, she has been a teaching artist for the Department of Youth Services making art with youth residing in secure treatment centers while serving sentences in the Massachusetts court system. In her trauma informed practice she uses visual expression as storytelling, transmitting knowledge, and defining values. She has executed over 30 public projects resulting in individual and collaborative artworks. In 2019 she taught at Eliot School of Applied Arts and Craft in Boston and the Surface Design Association’s biennial conference in St. Louis, MO. In addition to teaching, Comeau provides lectures on her work, fiber arts in a postmodern context, and visual voices of social justice.    

About the ICA
Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed in an East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Play Dates are sponsored by Vivien and Alan Hassenfeld, the Hassenfeld Family Foundation, and Alexion. 

Alexion logo

Major support for Sterling Ruby is provided by Sprüth Magers, Gagosian, and Xavier Hufkens.    

Additional support for the Boston presentation is generously provided by Stephanie Formica Connaughton and John Connaughton, Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest, Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, James and Audrey Foster, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, David and Leslie Puth, and Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III.

 

(Boston, MA–December 19, 2019) Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), announced that 16 significant works of art have entered the museum’s permanent collection, all acquired over the past year. Highlights include Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s ”The Beautyful Ones” Series #7 (2018), William Kentridge’s KABOOM! (2018), and Tschabalala Self’s Lite (2018), as well as works by Boston-based artists Josephine Halvorson and Lavaughan Jenkins. A selection of these new acquisitions will go on view in the coming months, including Self’s painting in Tschabalala Self: Out of Body on view Jan. 20 — July 5, 2020 and Kentridge’s immersive video installation KABOOM! on view July 22, 2020 — Jan. 3, 2021.

“The ICA Collection was started in 2006 and as a young collecting institution, we have the unique opportunity to build a collection with exemplary works of art that speak to the important issues of our time and more accurately reflect the diverse perspectives and narratives of the world we live in,” said Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director at the ICA. “We are grateful to our generous donors, who share and support this vision to grow the ICA Collection with remarkable works of art that both shape and define our contemporary culture.”

“These new acquisitions introduce global and local perspectives and concerns to our publics, enabling the museum to create more dialogue around works of art within the Collection and develop richer artistic, cultural, and historical narratives,” said Eva Respini, the ICA’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator. “We look forward to sharing these works with our audiences and in the spring of 2021, we will open our most extensive and ambitious collection presentation to date.”

Select new acquisitions below; please see here for a complete list of 2019 acquisitions.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby
“The Beautyful Ones” Series #7, 2018
Acrylic, colored pencil and transfers on paper 59 ⅞ x 41½ inches (152.1 x 105.4 cm)
Acquired through the generosity of Fotene and Tom Coté, in honor of Eva Respini

One of today’s most celebrated painters, Njideka Akunyili Crosby has developed a signature style of collaged paintings that feature photographic transfers drawn from magazines, advertisements, and family albums. “The Beautyful Ones” Series #7 is part of the series The Beautyful Ones (2014- ongoing), which takes intergenerational memory and future, imagined and real, as its subject, incorporating images of children from the artist’s family photographs or from snapshots taken on recent visits to Nigeria. “The Beautyful Ones” Series #7 will be featured in a major collection presentation opening in spring 2021.

William Kentridge
KABOOM!, 2018
Three-channel HD film installation, model stage, paper props, found objects, and three mini-projectors with stands
75 ¼ x 196¼ x 40 ⅜ inches (191 x 498.5 x 102.5 cm)
Acquired through the generosity of Amy and David Abrams, James and Audrey Foster, Charlotte Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner Ill, Jeanne L. Wasserman Art Acquisition Fund, and Fotene and Tom Coté Art Acquisition Fund

KABOOM! by the South African artist William Kentridge is a mixed-media three-channel work projected onto a scale model of the stage from the artist’s tour-de-force performance The Head & the Load. Employing his trademark multidisciplinary approach and his signature trope of the procession, Kentridge builds up dynamic layers of drawings, moving images, and texts projected over top of sculptural paper props to tell the story of the nearly two million African porters and carriers used by the British, French, and Germans during World War I. The ICA will present a standalone exhibition of this immersive work from July 22, 2020, through Jan. 3, 2021.

Toyin Ojih Odutola
Heir Apparent, 2018
Pastel, charcoal, and pencil on paper
63 ¼ x 42 inches (160.6 x 106.7 cm)
Acquired through the generosity of the Acquisitions Circle

Toyin Ojih Odutola’s drawing practice stages a dynamic interplay between line, form, and color to create sensuous and probing portraits. Since 2016 the artist has focused on a series that imagines the private lives of two fictional, aristocratic Nigerian families joined by marriage. Heir Apparent comes from the series’ final installment and features the nephew of Lord Jideofor Emeka and Lord Temitope Omodele, the presumed heir of their joint wealth. The work exemplifies Ojih Odutola’s inventive narrative conceit of a reimagined Nigeria, whose portrayal challenges those often constructed by and seen in the West. It also captures her consummate skill, especially her unique handling of surfaces, skin, and interiors to create dynamic and memorable works.

Tschabalala Self
Lite, 2018
Acrylic, Flashe, milk paint, fabric, and gum on canvas
96 x 84 inches (243.8 x 213.4 cm)
Acquired through the generosity of the
Acquisitions Circle, Tristin and Martin Mannion, Rob Larsen, Patrick Planeta and Santiago Varela, and anonymous donors

Tschabalala Self is among a generation of young artists who are advancing new modes of figurative painting, often while privileging African American selfhood and intersectional identities. Her figures celebrate the black body—especially those of black women—and their textural, coloristic, and abstract qualities reference psychological and emotional states. Lite features a female figure striding assertively past a male bystander who nearly blends into the storefront, suggesting his omnipresence as a neighborhood fixture who is often ignored. Through this passive interaction, a tension emerges between stasis and movement, dereliction and progress, which the artist considers emblematic of city life. Lite is included in Tschabalala Self: Out of Body, the artist’s largest exhibition to date, on view Jan. 20 to July 5, 2020.

About the ICA’s permanent collection

Established in 2006, the ICAʼs permanent collection offers a diverse overview of national and international artworks in a range of media. The collection includes works by Nick Cave, Paul Chan, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Marlene Dumas, Nan Goldin, Eva Hesse, Mona Hatoum, Ragnar Kjartansson, Steve McQueen, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, and Andy Warhol, among many others. Included in the collection is The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, encompassing major works of 20th- and 21st-century art—including important pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Ellen Gallagher, Eva Hesse, Sherrie Levine, and a monumental wall tableau by Kara Walker. The collection is currently comprised of 61 percent women artists and 31 percent artists of color.

About the ICA

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed in an East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Sterling Ruby features over two decades of artist’s career through painting, collage, and sculpture, highlights iconic series alongside unseen early and recent works

Expansive exhibition opens at ICA/Boston on February 26 after three-month run at ICA Miami

(Boston, MA—December 18, 2019) The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA/Boston) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) have co-organized Sterling Ruby, the most comprehensive museum survey of American/Dutch artist Sterling Ruby (b. 1972) to date. Opening at the ICA/Boston on February 26, 2020 after a three-month run at the ICA Miami, the survey brings together more than 70 works for the first time to demonstrate the relationship between material transformation in Ruby’s practice and the rapid evolution of contemporary culture, institutions, and labor. Spanning more than two decades of the artist’s career, the exhibition looks to the origins and development of his practice, through mediums ranging from lesser-known drawings and sculptures to his renowned ceramics and paintings. Sterling Ruby is organized by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston, and Alex Gartenfeld, Artistic Director, ICA Miami, with Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, ICA/Boston. The exhibition will be on view at the ICA/Boston February 26 through May 26, 2020. It is on view at ICA Miami from November 7, 2019 through February 2, 2020.

“Ruby’s work embraces America’s icons, from the Stars and Stripes to craft culture, even as it delves into the dark forces at play today. It addresses a wide range of issues—from the political underbelly of the landscape to material investigations of handmade traditions—and in the process, Ruby reexamines notions of beauty, value, and the history of sculpture itself. Ruby’s uneasy combinations of materials, forms, and ideas offer the perfect analogy for our agitated times,” said Eva Respini, the ICA/Boston’s Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

“Though Sterling Ruby is distinguished for his prolific and experimental studio practice, there are many pressing thematic elements of his work that have yet to be fully considered,” said Alex Gartenfeld, ICA Miami’s Artistic Director. “By tying together the evolution of Ruby’s innovations in production and the development of his fascination with American culture, the exhibition proposes new ways to consider Ruby’s impact. Since our new permanent home opened in 2017, this is the first solo exhibition to span two full floors of the museum – offering an opportunity to explore Ruby’s practice in greater depth than ever before, including some of his earliest and rarely-seen works.”

Since his earliest works, Ruby has investigated the role of the artist as outsider. Critiquing the structures of modernism and traditional institutions, Ruby addresses the repressed underpinnings of U.S. culture and the coding of power and violence. Craft is central to his inquiry, as he explores California’s radical ceramics history to traditions of Amish quilt making, shaped by his upbringing in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The process of combining disparate elements is central to Ruby’s material reclamations, which serve as a form of autobiographical and cultural archeology. Organized loosely by chronology and medium, Sterling Ruby considers the artist’s explorations of these themes across the many materials and forms he has utilized throughout his practice.

Sterling Ruby begins with the artist’s early collages, drawings, and prints, which continuously explore the personal and cultural subconscious. These early works, including Crystal Cryer (2001) and Transient Bed of John (2003), trace the origins of the complex visual language that has come to define Ruby’s oeuvre. Further exemplifying the artist’s interest in craft, Sterling Ruby includes a selection of the ceramics for which he is widely known. Influenced by his mother’s collection of pottery and dishware, Ruby’s ceramics represent the artist’s probing of figurative forms, gesture and immediacy, and display hand-worked characteristics, but are not intended to serve functional purposes.

Throughout his career, Ruby has often employed two-dimensional mediums to elaborate on recurrent subjects including the nation’s prison-industrial complex and maximum-security prisons. In a large series of works, among them Prison (2004), Ruby combines images of prisons and pastes them on top of orange paper, referencing the color of correctional facility uniforms. The exhibition additionally considers the tension of expression and repression, particularly through Ruby’s monumental urethane works, which he began making in response to the scale limitations of ceramics. For the artist, these sculptures serve to disrupt the minimalist structures of museums—another perceived product of institutionalization. The exhibition includes several works from Ruby’s Monument Stalagmite series, towering sculptures created by a time and labor-intensive process. This includes Monument Stalagmite/The Shining (2011), which features dripped red dye that takes on the appearance of blood and refers to an iconic scene in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaption of Stephen King’s novel The Shining (1980).

Another of Ruby’s signature materials, spray paint, is present across several series and represents the artist’s blurring of high and low culture. Influenced by graffiti culture, works from the artist’s series of monumental spray-painted canvases, entitled SP, are reminiscent of landscapes—frequently evoking sceneries plagued by environmental destruction.

Ruby’s soft sculptures—formed from various fabrics stuffed with fiberfill—occupy a complex place within the artist’s practice, invoking craft and flag-making as well as horrific cartoons. As a result of growing up in a family of seamstresses and his early exposure to quilting communities in rural Pennsylvania, Ruby began reusing scraps of leftover textiles to create his QUILT and FLAG series. The exhibition places these works in dialogue with other soft sculptures fashioned from American-flag patterned fabric, including DOUBLE CANDLE (6992) (2019) and Double Vampire 14 (2013). A new work created from this fabric, entitled FIGURES. PILE. (6991) (2019), comprises a pile of interwoven figures that appear as a monumental corpselike form.

The exhibition additionally features Ruby’s metal works, including his MS series—architectural monuments that invoke violence through their gun-like forms. Made from scrap sheet metal and rebar, these forms further demonstrate Ruby’s ethos of material reuse. Also included are Ruby’s STOVES, drawing inspiration from his childhood experience of tending his family’s wood-burning stove, as well as from foundry workers’ furnaces.

Concluding the exhibition are examples from Ruby’s series, ECLPSE and SCALES, both of which reuse residual materials found throughout Ruby’s studio. These series are examples of Ruby’s interest in reviving modernist art visuals and infusing them with reused items. For instance, SCALE (4586) (2013) and SCALE (5415) S.R. CLOR. (2015) feature everyday objects both altered and found, such as cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, and bleach-splattered jeans, installed as a mobile—a form associated with modern artist Alexander Calder. Taking up classic tropes of modernism throughout his work, Ruby aims to intervene in historical forms of image making and manufacture in order to test their urgency today.

Exhibition Catalogue

Sterling Ruby is accompanied by an illustrated scholarly catalogue edited by Alex Gartenfeld and Eva Respini, with an interview by Isabelle Graw. Published with DelMonico Prestel, the catalogue features essays that consider Ruby’s work amidst the contemporary art production and visual culture of the last 30 years. The exhibition catalogue is available for purchase at the ICA Store.

The Artist’s Voice: Sterling Ruby and Virgil Abloh

Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 2 PM
Sterling Ruby and Virgil Abloh, exhibiting artists at the ICA this season, have broken barriers and notions of how and where today’s contemporary artists can or should work. In this special program, Ruby and Abloh come together to discuss their work, backgrounds, and influential creative practices that transcend any one discipline, crossing into art, fashion, design, and more. Hear more about the artists’ highly anticipated exhibitions at the ICA in this free public talk, moderated by Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA.

About Sterling Ruby

Sterling Ruby is a leading contemporary artist whose work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo (2008 – 2009); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2013); Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland (2014); and at the Belvedere, Vienna (2016); among many others.

Ruby’s work is featured in museum collections worldwide, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Tate Modern, London.

Ruby graduated in 1996 from the Pennsylvania School of Art and Design, Lancaster. Ruby received his B.F.A. in 2002 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, and his M.F.A. in 2005 from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Born in 1972 on Bitburg Air Base in Bitburg, Germany, he currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

About the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and augmenting art’s role as educator, incubator, and convener for social engagement. Its innovative exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. Spanning two locations across Boston Harbor, the ICA offers year-round programming at its iconic building in Boston’s Seaport and seasonal programming (May-September) at the Watershed in an East Boston shipyard.

The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) is dedicated to promoting continuous experimentation in contemporary art, advancing new scholarship, and fostering the exchange of art and ideas throughout the Miami region and internationally. Through an energetic calendar of exhibitions and programs, and its collection, the ICA Miami provides an important international platform for the work of local, emerging, and under-recognized artists, and advances the public appreciation and understanding of the most innovative art of our time.

Launched in 2014, ICA Miami opened its new permanent home in Miami’s Design District on December 1, 2017. The museum’s central location positions it as a cultural anchor within the community and enhances its role in developing cultural literacy throughout the Miami region. The museum offers free admission, providing audiences with open, public access to artistic excellence year-round.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami is located at 61 NE 41st Street, Miami, Florida 33137. www.icamiami.org

Media Contacts:

ICA/Boston

Margaux Leonard
mleonard@icaboston.org / 617-478-3176

ICA Miami

National and International Media:

Jill Mediatore / Megan Ardery / Barbara Escobar, Resnicow and Associates
jmediatore / mardery / bescobar@resnicow.com, 212.671.5164 / 5181 / 5174

Regional Media

Davina Dresbach, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami            
ddresbach@icamiami.org, 305.901.5272 ext. 218

Aaron Gordon, Schwartz Media Strategies
aaron@schwartz-media.com, 305.858.3935

Acknowledgments

Major support for Sterling Ruby is provided by Sprüth Magers, Gagosian, and Philanthropic Action Xavier Hufkens    

SPONSORS_Spruth Magers Gagosian Xavier Hufkens combined Sterling Ruby

Additional support for the Boston presentation is generously provided by Stephanie Formica Connaughton and John Connaughton, Jean-François and Nathalie Ducrest, Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, James and Audrey Foster, Ted Pappendick and Erica Gervais Pappendick, David and Leslie Puth, and Charlotte and Herbert S. Wagner III.